Hi Ivinia!Thank you so much for your earlier observations and thoughts of the game! I think you are probably right with the idea of the photographs!

At first I thought the "tears" were symbolic for "a tear through the fabric of time", but the rust colors made no sense to me. I'm fascinated by this thread, and although I'm coming in late, I'll check back in the future!

Did anyone notice the connection of Nanny Noah and the name "The Ark" on her house. Noah's Ark. But I can't seem to put together how that would be significant to the game.

I've played the whole game, and am not certain of Lucy Reubans. Can you help? Is she in "our" time frame, or from the past? Is she on our side, or not? Remember her sneaking around by the water tower talking with someone? What was the significance of that?

Hallo cutiechix37, Lucy talked by the tower with

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her brother, who worked undercover to solve the mystery of the missing cats. You know him als Alex Spitmoor, the gruntly journalist. Alex thought, Danvers could be the catnapper, but Lucy told him by the tower that his innocent.

About the timeline:

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look at the date at which Lucys is recruited by hadden Industries (you can see it at the end of the game: she seems to live in our time.

My eyes have been peeled open! I puzzled over the deliberately torn/splotchy graphics and wrote off some of the things like the blood spots on the rocks to the kinds of programming shortcuts one usually finds in adventure games, but I did not consider that

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everything might be some kind of alternate reality that may not follow traditional rules of reality.

I've got my own weird evidence I've not seen mentioned:On the wall of photos in the room of death, two pics show Nigel and Lucy together at a carnival, with real mechanical rides all bedecked in colored lights, OBVIOUSLY not part of the Fayre. All I can say is: WTHeck? The other bit of weird evidence is that the payphone has strange modem-like sounds instead of the normal dial-tone, same as the background music for the computer printouts. Evidence suggesting that the phone is either hacked into by Hadden, or is some kind of link from the 'dream-world' into the outside world via the Hadden company servers, which would explain why Hadden was able to simply connect to the disconnected phone in the Harbour Cottage.Despite all the evidence though, I still stand back and concur that some of the main plot lines don't make sense, regardless of the scenarios painted out. First the people seem to be helping Nigel find the crown. In particular the ghosts deliberately hand Nigel clues. Then he is warned that all is not what it seems, but it IS what it turns out to be what it seems.Morgan Mankle in particular is ill-fitted. She seems somewhat older than Lucy, who described her as a bully in school.Hardacre is killed, supposedly because he possesses the crown. (how is one killed by a sickle and not shed any blood?) Then the crown is not where he died, but hidden away. Nigel, the thief himself, got all the way into town and hid the crown without harm. Maybe it took time for the guardians to manifest and by then the crown was in different hands. Personally I think ghosts are insubstantial, even in this game, and somebody alive killed him.If Hadden is controlling everything though, all bets are off and anything illogical can be explained by his duex-ex-machina interference, which is why I do not prefer that angle.

Your remark about the photos is very interesting. I too noticed the modem-like sounds. This seems to hint in the direction of an alternative reality; meanwhile Nigel’s body never left the laboratory of Hadden Industries. I was surprised about the people of Saxton who helped Nigel and later were angry. Perhaps they thought he would act different. The dreamlike sequence, in which Nigel is part of the painting of the Ager brothers seems to point in this direction.

I still don' t know what to think about the story of the game - hope Jonathan Boakes gives a statement soon. Perhaps after the release of the game in europe???

I am one of those people who like all loose threads tied up at the finish of a good book or adventure game. Since I was left feeling confused at the way the game ended, It took some of the enjoyment away for me. However, in saying that I still would buy it again because it was fun playing it, especially the ghost hunting in the house.

Hi there. I just finished TLC last night so I'm kicking up this old thread rather than start a new one.

First, I thought it was a fabulous game. But I am disturbed by some of the plot elements that just didn't make sense.

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I hadn't thought of the whole thing taking place in an alternate reality or computer simulation. I'll have to mull that over to see if it makes any sense to me.

I am also confused by the way that

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the ghosts and the townspeople seem to help Nigel find the Crown, and in fact, are eager to help him do it. Nanny Noah says repeatedly, "He could be the one who could change everything," as if that would be a good thing. But then when Nigel does find the Crown, no one (with the exception of Bob Tawny and the Reubenses) will admit to knowing him or wants to have anything to do with him. What's up with that?

As for the catnapper

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I also am not convinced it was really Gruel. Yeah, okay, he was a loon, but he didn't seem like a dangerous loon.

And what was up with

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the vicar of Northfield?? he says the portrait on the wall behind him--which is clearly one of the Agers--was an ancestor of his from way back. I really expected that to have some significance but it never did. In fact, I expected to find out the vicar was the catnapper. Also, when we take the funeral announcement to Nanny Noah she says,"there's a new vicar already?" or something like that. Yet the Vicar says he's been there 30 years.

It seemed to me like

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the whole thing was somewhat rushed from the time we took the crown (Wow, I would have liked a way NOT to do that!!). I really didn't like the Dea Ex Machina ending, myself. But the rapidity with which the ending occurred as well as the fact that all it took was Nigel's saying he wanted to put it back for that to transport him to the caverns does kind of point to the whole thing's being a simulation or experiment of some kind. I think.

Did anyone else notice that

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when we were in the cavern putting the crown back, surrounded by ghostly figures, one of the ghostly figures was Lucy?

I think those are all my thoughts for the time being. I may have to play this one again and pay more attention to certain details.

WW

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"So then he says it's enough to take aim! What's that supposed to mean?!?"

the vicar of Northfield?? he says the portrait on the wall behind him--which is clearly one of the Agers--was an ancestor of his from way back. I really expected that to have some significance but it never did. In fact, I expected to find out the vicar was the catnapper. Also, when we take the funeral announcement to Nanny Noah she says,"there's a new vicar already?" or something like that. Yet the Vicar says he's been there 30 years.

Nigel seems to cross through different time periods. If you remember, at one point Nigel reads an old newsclipping recounting the deaths of Robert & Katherine Karswell in a house fire (? I'm fairly certain it was a fire, someone correct me if I'm wrong), but they were very much alive when he visited them at their cottage.

when we were in the cavern putting the crown back, surrounded by ghostly figures, one of the ghostly figures was Lucy?

I sure did. It confused me at first. But that's one of the reasons I'm inclined to think the whole thing was a simulation.

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I am also confused by the way that

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the ghosts and the townspeople seem to help Nigel find the Crown, and in fact, are eager to help him do it. Nanny Noah says repeatedly, "He could be the one who could change everything," as if that would be a good thing. But then when Nigel does find the Crown, no one (with the exception of Bob Tawny and the Reubenses) will admit to knowing him or wants to have anything to do with him. What's up with that?

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Maybe they wanted him to do something else -- like free the spirits that were trapped or defeat the Agers? Remember how at certain points in the game, after Nigel had accomplished something along those lines, that there was more color in the game. I noticed it mainly at two points -- in Nanny Noah's house, the second time Nigel was invited in, and when the blue sky appeared.

the vicar of Northfield?? he says the portrait on the wall behind him--which is clearly one of the Agers--was an ancestor of his from way back. I really expected that to have some significance but it never did. In fact, I expected to find out the vicar was the catnapper. Also, when we take the funeral announcement to Nanny Noah she says,"there's a new vicar already?" or something like that. Yet the Vicar says he's been there 30 years.

Nigel seems to cross through different time periods. If you remember, at one point Nigel reads an old newsclipping recounting the deaths of Robert & Katherine Karswell in a house fire (? I'm fairly certain it was a fire, someone correct me if I'm wrong), but they were very much alive when he visited them at their cottage.

Wow, never saw that! Where was it? Do you remember?

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I suppose the theory of having different time periods existing simultaneously could explain the Agers as well (4 men of the same name always referred to as "brothers" yet clearly not of the same times). Yet for me it doesn't jibe with the story of Grindle and Granwulf, which gave the impression that you would have a bunch of incredibly long-lived people watching out for the Crown. That's what I thought the folk of Saxton were, not all ghosts.

DH has a problem with the Agers ultimately in that he thinks that having such evil men going about a task my such evil means watching over the Crown infers that their purpose is innately evil, which would mean the Crown was meant to be found. But I don;t know that I agree with that.

I may have more thoughts later; right now I'm foggy and still on my first cup of coffee.

WW

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"So then he says it's enough to take aim! What's that supposed to mean?!?"